Chapter V - The Analysis of the Aesthetic Experience: The Structure of the Experience

In our discussion of first principles, we set down a high degree of
unity as one of the distinguishing characteristics of works of art.
In this we followed close upon ancient tradition; for the markedly
structural character of beauty was noticed by the earliest observers.
Plato, the first philosopher of art, identified beauty with simplicity,
harmony, and proportion, and Aristotle held the same view. They were
so impressed with aesthetic unity that they compared it with the other
most highly unified type of thing they knew, the organism; and ever
afterwards it has been called “organic unity.” With the backing of
such authority, unity in variety was long thought to be the same as
beauty; and, although this view is obviously one-sided, no one has
since succeeded in persuading men that an object can be beautiful
without unity.

Since art is expression, its unity is, unavoidably, an image of the
unity of the things in nature and mind which it expresses. A lyric
poem reflects the unity of mood that binds together the thoughts and
images of the poet; the drama and novel, the unity of plan and purpose
in the acts of men and the fateful sequence of causes and effects in
their lives. The statue reflects the organic unity of the body; the
painting, the spatial unity of visible things. In beautiful artifacts,
the basal unity is the purpose or end embodied in the material
structure.

But the unity of works of art is not wholly derivative; for it occurs
in the free arts like music, where nothing is imitated, and even in
the representative arts, as we have observed, it is closer than in the
things which are imaged. Aesthetic unity is therefore unique and, if
we would understand it, we must seek its reason in the peculiar nature
and purpose of art. Since, moreover, art is a complex fact, the
explanation of its unity is not simple; the unity itself is very
intricate and depends upon many cooperating factors.

In the case of the imitative arts, taking the given unity of the objects
represented as a basis, the superior unity of the image is partly due
to the singleness of the artist’s interest. For art, as we know, is
never the expression of mere things, but of things so far as they have
value. Out of the infinite fullness of nature and of life, the artist
selects those elements that have a unique significance for him.

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;
Odors, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken;
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved’s bed;
And so thy thoughts when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

Observe how, out of the countless things which he knows, the poet has
chosen those which he feels akin to his faith in the immortality of
love. The painter would not, if he could, reproduce all the elements
of a face, but only those that are expressive of the interpretation
of character he wishes to convey. The novelist and the dramatist proceed
in a like selective fashion in the treatment of their material. In the
lives of men there are a thousand actions and events–casual spoken
words, recurrent processes such as eating and dressing, hours of
idleness and futility which, because repetitious, habitual, or
inconsequential, throw no light upon that alone in which we are
interested,–character and fortune. To describe a single example of
these facts suffices. In the novel and drama, therefore, the
personalities and life histories of men have a simplicity and singleness
of direction not found in reality. The artist seeks everywhere the
traits that individualize and characterize, and neglects all others.

Moreover, since the aim of art is to afford pleasure in the intuition
of life, the artist will try to reveal the hidden unities that so
delight the mind to discover. He will aim to penetrate beneath the
surface of experience observed by common perception, to its more obscure
logic underneath. In this way he will go beyond what the mere mechanism
of imitation requires. The poet, for example, manifests latent emotional
harmonies among the most widely sundered things. The subtle novelist
shows how single elements of character, apparently isolated acts or
trivial incidents, are fateful of consequences. He discloses the minute
reactions of one personality upon another. Or he enters into the soul
of man himself, into his private and individual selfhood, and uncovers
the hidden connections between thought and feeling and impulse. Finally,
he may take the wider sweep of society and tradition into view and
track out their part in the molding of man and his fate. In the search
for unity, the artist is on common ground with the man of science; but
with this difference: the artist is concerned with laws operating in
concrete, individual things in which he is interested; while the
scientist formulates them in the abstract. For the artist, unity is
valuable as characterizing a significant individual; for the scientist,
it is valuable in itself, and the individual only as an example of it.

This same purpose of affording pleasure in sympathetic vision leads
the artist not only to present the unity of life, but so to organize
its material that it will be clear to the mind which perceives it. Too
great a multitude of elements, elements that are not assorted into
groups and tied by relations or principles, cannot be grasped. Hence
the artist infuses into the world which he creates a new and wholly
subjective simplicity and unity, to which there is no parallel in
nature. The composition of elements in a picture does not correspond
to any actual arrangement of elements in a landscape, but to the demands
of visual perspicuity. The division of a novel into chapters, of the
chapters into paragraphs, of the paragraphs into sentences, although
it may answer in some measure to the objective divisions of the
life-story related, corresponds much more closely to the subjective
need for ready apprehension. The artist meets this need halfway in the
organization of the material which he presents. Full beauty depends
upon an adaptation of the object to the senses, attention, and synthetic
functions of the mind. The long, rambling novel of the eighteenth
century is a more faithful image of the fullness and diversity of life,
but it answers ill to the limited sweep of the mind, its proneness to
fatigue, and its craving for wholeness of view.

But even all the reasons so far invoked–the necessity for significance,
the interest in unity, the demand for perspicuity–do not, I think,
suffice to explain the structure of works of art. For structure has,
oftentimes, a direct emotional appeal, which has not yet been taken
into account, and which is a leading motive for its presence. Consider,
for example, symmetry. A symmetrical disposition of parts is indeed
favorable to perspicuity; for it is easier to find on either side what
we have already found on the other, the sight of one side preparing
us for the sight of the other; and such an arrangement is flattering
to our craving for unity, for we rejoice seeing the same pattern
expressed in the two parts; yet the experience of symmetry is richer
still: it includes an agreeable feeling of balance, steadfastness,
stability. This is most evident in the case of visual objects, like
a Greek vase, where there is a plain division between right and left
similar halves; but it is also felt in music when there is a balance
of themes in the earlier and later parts of a composition, and in
literature in the well-balanced sentence, paragraph, or poem. To cite
the very simplest example, if I read, “on the one hand ... on the other
hand,” I have a feeling of balanced tensions precisely analogous to
what I experience when I look at a vase. Structure is not a purely
intellectual or perceptive affair; it is also motor and organic, and
that means emotional. It is felt with the body as well as understood
by the mind. I have used the case of symmetry to bring out this truth,
but I might have used other types of unification, each of which has
its unique feeling tone, as I shall show presently, after I have
analyzed them.

Keeping in mind the motives which explain the structure of works of
art, I wish now to distinguish and describe the chief types. There
are, I think, three of these, of which each one may include important
special forms–unity in variety, dominance, and equilibrium.

Unity in variety was the earliest of the types to be observed and is
the most fundamental. It is the organic unity so often referred to in
criticism. It involves, in the first place, wholeness or individuality.
Every work of art is a definite single thing, distinct and separate
from other things, and not divisible into parts which are themselves
complete works of art. No part can be taken away without damage to the
whole, and when taken out of the whole, the part loses much of its own
value. The whole needs all of its parts and they need it; “there they
live and move and have their being.” The unity is a unity of the variety
and the variety is a differentiation of the unity. [Footnote: Cf. Lipps:
Aesthetik, Bd. I, Drittes Kapitel.] The variety is of equal
importance with the unity, for unity can assert itself and work only
through the control of a multiplicity of elements. The analogy between
the unity of the work of art and the unity of the organism is still
the most accurate and illuminating. For, like the work of art, the
body is a self-sufficient and distinctive whole, whose unified life
depends upon the functioning of many members, which, for their part,
are dead when cut away from it.

The conception of unity in variety as organic represents an ideal or
norm for art, which is only imperfectly realized in many works. There
are few novels which would be seriously damaged by the omission of
whole chapters, and many a rambling essay in good standing would permit
pruning without injury, unless indeed we are made to feel that the
apparently dispensable material really contributes something of fullness
and exuberance, and so is not superfluous, after all. The unity in
some forms of art is tighter than in others; in a play closer than in
a novel; in a sonnet more compact than in an epic. In extreme examples,
like The Thousand and One Nights, the Decameron, the Canterbury
Tales, the unity is almost wholly nominal, and the work is really a
collection, not a whole. With all admissions, it remains true, however,
that offenses against the principle of unity in variety diminish the
aesthetic value of a work. These offenses are of two kinds–the
inclusion of the genuinely irrelevant, and multiple unity, like double
composition in a picture, or ambiguity of style in a building. There may
be two or more parallel lines of action in a play or a novel, two or
more themes in music, but they must be interwoven and interdependent.
Otherwise there occurs the phenomenon aptly called by Lipps “aesthetic
rivalry"–each part claims to be the whole and to exclude its neighbor;
yet being unable to do this, suffers injury through divided attention.

Unity in variety may exist in any one or more of three modes–the
harmony or union of cooperating elements; the balance of contrasting
or conflicting elements; the development or evolution of a process
towards an end or climax. The first two are predominantly static or
spatial; the last, dynamic and temporal. I know of no better way of
indicating the characteristic quality of each than by citing examples.

Aesthetic harmony exists whenever some identical quality or form or
purpose is embodied in various elements of a whole–sameness in
difference. The repetition of the same space-form in architecture,
like the round arch and window in the Roman style; the recurrence of
the same motive in music; the use of a single hue to color the different
objects in a painting, as in a nocturne of Whistler: these are simple
illustrations of harmony. An almost equally simple case is gradation
or lawful change of quality in space and time–the increase or decrease
of loudness in music of saturation or brightness of hue in painting,
the gentle change of direction of a curved line. In these cases there
is, of course, a dynamic or dramatic effect, if you take the elements
in sequence; but when taken simultaneously and together, they are a
harmony, not a development. Simplest of all is the harmony between
like parts of regular figures, such as squares and circles; or between
colors which are neighboring in hue. Harmonious also are characters
in a story or play which are united by feelings of love, friendship,
or loyalty. Thus there is harmony between Hamlet and Horatio, or between
the Cid and his followers.

Aesthetic balance is the unity between elements which, while they
oppose or conflict with one another, nevertheless need or supplement
each other. Hostile things, enemies at war, business men that compete,
persons that hate each other, have as great a need of their opponents,
in order that there may be a certain type of life, as friends have,
in order that there may be love between them; and in relation to each
other they create a whole in the one case as in the other. There is
as genuine a unity between contrasting colors and musical themes as
there is between colors closely allied in hue or themes simply
transposed in key. Contrasting elements are always the extremes of
some series, and are unified, despite the contrast, because they
supplement each other. Things merely different, no matter how different,
cannot contrast, for there must be some underlying whole, to which
both belong, in which they are unified. In order that this unity may
be felt, it is often necessary to avoid absolute extremes, or at least
to mediate between them. Among colors, for example, hues somewhat
closer than the complementary are preferred to the latter, or, if the
extremes are employed, each one leads up to the other through
intermediate hues. The unity of contrasting colors is a balance because,
as extremes, they take an equal hold on the attention. The well-known
accentuation of contrasting elements does not interfere with the
balance, because it is mutual. A balanced unity is also created by
contrasts of character, as in Goethe’s Tasso, or by a conflict
between social classes or parties, as in Hauptmann’s Die Weber.
Balanced, finally, is the unity between the elements of a painting,
right and left, which draw the attention in opposite directions. The
third type of unity appears in any process or sequence in which all
the elements, one after another, contribute towards the bringing about
of some end or result. It is the unity characteristic of all
teleologically related facts. The sequence cannot be a mere succession
or even a simple causal series, but must also be purposive, because,
in order to be aesthetic, the goal which is reached must have value.
Causality is an important aspect of this type of unity, as in the
drama, but only because a teleological series of actions depends upon
a chain of causally related means and ends. The type is of two
varieties: in the one, the movement is smooth, each element being
harmoniously related to the last; in the other, it is difficult and
dramatic, proceeding through the resolution of oppositions among its
elements. The movement usually has three stages: an initial phase of
introduction and preparation; a second phase of opposition and
complication; then a final one, the climax or catastrophe, when the
goal is reached; there may also be a fourth,–the working out of the
consequences of this last. Illustrations of this mode of unity are:
the course of a story or a play from the introduction of the characters
and the complication of the plot to the denouement or solving of the
problem; the development of a character in a novel from a state of
simplicity or innocence through storm and stress into maturity or ruin;
the evolution of a sentiment in a sonnet towards its final statement
in the last line or two; the melody, in its departure from the keynote,
its going forth and return; the career of a line.

As I have indicated before, each type of unity has its specific
emotional quality. The very word harmony which we use to denote the
first mode is itself connotative of a way of being affected, of being
moved emotionally. The mood of this mode is quiet, oneness, peace. We
feel as if we were closely and compactly put together. If now, within
the aesthetic whole, we emphasize the variety, we begin to lose the
mood of peace; tensions arise, until, in the case of contrast and
opposition, there is a feeling of conflict and division in the self;
yet without loss of unity, because, if the whole is aesthetic, each of
the opposing elements demands the other; hence there is balance between
them, and this also we not only know to be there, but feel there. The
characteristic mood of the evolutionary type of unity is equally
unique–either a sense of easy motion, when the process is unobstructed,
or excitement and breathlessness, when there is opposition.

The different types of unity are by no means exclusive of each other
and are usually found together in any complex work of art. Symmetry
usually involves a combination of harmony and balance. The symmetrical
halves of a Greek vase, for example, are harmonious in so far as their
size and shape are the same, yet balanced as being disposed in opposite
directions, right and left. Rhythm is temporal symmetry, and so also
represents a combination of harmony and balance. Static rhythm is only
apparent; for in every seeming case, the rhythm really pervades the
succession of acts of attention to the elements rather than the elements
themselves; a colonnade, for example, is rhythmical only when the
attention moves from one column to another. There is harmony in rhythm,
for there is always some law–metrical scheme in poetry, time in music,
similarity of column and equality of interval between them in a
colonnade–pervading the elements. But there is also balance; for as
the elements enter the mind one after the other, there is rivalry
between the element now occupying the focus of the attention and the
one that is about to present an equal claim to this position. Because
of its intrinsic value, we tend to hold on to each element as we hear
or see it, but are forced to relinquish it for the sake of the one
that follows; only for a moment can we keep both in the conscious span;
the recurrence and overcoming of the resulting tension, as we follow
the succession through, creates the pulsation so characteristic of
rhythm. The opposition of the elements as in turn they crowd each other
out does not, however, interfere with the harmony, for they have an
existence all together in memory, where the law binding them can be
felt,–a law which each element as it comes into consciousness is
recognized as fulfilling. Since we usually look forward to the end of
the rhythmical movement as a goal, rhythm often exists in combination
with evolution, and is therefore the most inclusive of all artistic
structural forms. In a poem, for example, the metrical rhythm is a
framework overlying the development of the thought. Dramatic unity is
found combined with balance even in the static arts, as, for example,
in the combination of blue and gold, where the balance is not quite
equal, because of a slight movement from the blue to the more brilliant
and striking gold. I have already shown how harmony, opposition, and
evolution may be combined in a melody. In the drama, also, all three
are present. There is a balance of opposing and conflicting wills or
forces; this is unstable; whence movement follows, leading on to the
catastrophe, where the problem is solved; and throughout there is a
single mood or atmosphere in which all participate, creating an
enveloping harmony despite the tension and action. And other
illustrations of combinations of types will come to the mind of every
reader.

Each form of unity has its difficulties and dangers, which must be
avoided if perfection is to be attained. In harmony there may be too
much identity and too little difference or variety, with the result
that the whole becomes tedious and uninteresting. This is the fault
of rigid symmetry and of all other simple geometrical types of
composition, which, for this reason, have lost their old popularity
in the decorative and pictorial arts. In balance, on the other hand,
the danger is that there may be too great a variety, too strong an
opposition; the elements tend to fly apart, threatening the integrity
of the whole. For it is not sufficient that wholeness exist in a work
of art; it must also be felt. For example, in Pre-Raphaelite paintings
and in most of the Secession work of our own day, the color contrasts
are too strong; there is no impression of visual unity. In the dramatic
type of unity there are two chief dangers–that the evolution be
tortuous, so that we lose our way in its bypaths and mazes; or, on the
other hand, that the end be reached too simply and quickly; in the one
case, we lose heart for the journey because of the obstacles; in the
other, we lose interest and are bored for want of incidents.

We come now to the second great principle of aesthetic structure–
Dominance. [Footnote: Cf. Lipps: Aesthetik, Bd. I, S. 53, Viertes
Kapitel] In an aesthetic whole the elements are seldom all on a level;
some are superior, others subordinate. The unity is mediated through
one or more accented elements, through which the whole comes to emphatic
expression. The attention is not evenly distributed among the parts,
but proceeds from certain ones which are focal and commanding to others
which are of lesser interest. And the dominant elements are not only
superior in significance; they are, in addition, representative of the
whole; in them, its value is concentrated; they are the key by means
of which its structure can be understood. They are like good rulers
in a constitutional state, who are at once preeminent members of the
community and signal embodiments of the common will. Anything which
distinguishes and makes representative of the whole serves to make
dominant. In a well-constructed play there are one or more characters
which are central to the action, in whom the spirit and problem of the
piece are embodied, as Hamlet in Hamlet and Brand in Brand; in every
plot there is the catastrophe or turning point, for which every
preceding incident is a preparation, and of which every following one is
a consequent; in a melody there is the keynote; in the larger
composition there are the one or more themes whose working out is the
piece; in a picture there are certain elements which especially attract
the attention, about which the others are composed. In the more complex
rhythms, in meters, for example, the elements are grouped around the
accented ones. In an aesthetic whole there are certain qualities and
positions which, because of their claim upon the attention, tend to make
dominant any elements which possess them. In space-forms the center and
the edges are naturally places of preeminence. The eye falls first upon
the center and then is drawn away to the boundaries. In old pictures,
the Madonna or Christ is placed in the center and the angels near the
perimeter; in fancy work it is the center and the border which women
embroider. In time, the beginning, middle, and end are the natural
places of importance; the beginning, because there the attention is
fresh and expectant; towards the middle, because there we tend to rest,
looking backward to the commencement and forward to the end; the end
itself, because being last in the mind, its hold upon the memory is
firmest. In any process the beginning is important as the start, the
plan, the preparation; the middle as the climax and turning point; the
end as the consummation. Of course by the middle is not meant a
mathematical point of division into equal parts, but a psychological
point, which is usually nearer the end, because the impetus of action
and purpose carry forward and beyond. Thus in a plot the beginning
stands out as setting the problem and introducing the characters and
situation; then the movement of the action, gathering force increasingly
as it proceeds, breaks at some point well beyond the middle; in the last
part the problem is solved and the consequences of the action are
revealed. Large size is another quality which distinguishes and tends to
make dominant, as in the tower and the mountain. In one of Memling’s
paintings, “St. Ursula and the Maidens,” which, when I saw it, was in
Bruges, the lady is represented twice as tall as the full grown girls
whom she envelops in her protecting cloak; yet, despite the
unnaturalness, we do not experience any incongruity; for it is rational
to our feeling. Intensity of any sort is another property which creates
dominance–loudness of sound in music; concentration of light in
painting, as in Rembrandt; stress in rhythm; depth and scope of purpose
and feeling, as in the great characters of fiction. The effectiveness of
intensity may be greatly increased through contrast–the pianissimo
after the fortissimo; the pathos of the fifth act of Hamlet set off by
the comedy of the first scene. Sometimes all the natural qualifications
of eminence are united in a single work: in old paintings, for example,
the Christ Child, spiritually the most significant element of the whole,
will be of supernatural size, will occupy the center of the picture,
will have the light concentrated upon him, and will be dressed in
brightly gleaming garments.

As I have already indicated, there may be more than one dominant
element; for instance, two or more principal characters in a novel or
play–Lord and Lady Macbeth, Sancho and Don Quixote, Othello and
Desdemona, Brand and his wife. In this case, there must be either
subordination among them, a hierarchical arrangement; or else
reciprocity or balance, as in the illustrations cited, where it is
difficult to tell which is the more important of the two; otherwise
they would pull the whole apart. The advantage of several dominant
elements lies in the greater animation, and when the work is large,
in the superior organization, which they confer. In order that there
may be perspicuity, it is necessary, when there are many elements,
that they be separated into minor groups around high points which
individualize and represent them, and so take their place in the mind,
mediating between them and unity when a final synthesis of the whole
is to be made.

The third great principle of aesthetic structure is equilibrium or
impartiality. This is a principle counteracting dominance. It demands,
despite the subordination among the elements, that none be neglected.
Each, no matter how minor its part in the whole, must have some unique
value of its own, must be an end as well as a means. Dominance is the
aristocratic principle in art, the rule of the best; this is the
democratic principle, the demand for freedom and significance for all.
Just as, in a well-ordered state, the happiness of no individual or
class of individuals is sacrificed to that of other individuals or
classes; so in art, each part must be elaborated and perfected, not
merely for the sake of its contribution to the whole, but for its own
sake. There should be no mere figure-heads or machinery. Loving care
of detail, of the incidental, characterizes the best art.

Of course this principle, like the others, is an ideal or norm, which
is only imperfectly realized in many works of art. Many a poet finds
it necessary to fill in his lines and many a painter and musician does
the like with his pictures or compositions. There is much mere
scaffolding and many lay-figures in drama and novel. But the work of
the masters is different. There each line or stroke or musical phrase,
each character or incident, is unique or meaningful. The greatest
example of this is perhaps the Divine Comedy, where each of the
hundred cantos and each line of each canto is perfect in workmanship
and packed with significance. There is, of course, a limit to this
elaboration of the parts, set by the demands for unity and wholeness.
The individuality of the elements must not be so great that we rest
in them severally, caring little or nothing for their relations to one
another and to the whole. The contribution of this principle is
richness. Unity in variety gives wholeness; dominance, order;
equilibrium, wealth, interest, vitality.

The structure of works of art is even more complicated than would
appear from the description given thus far. For there is not only the
unity of the elements among themselves, but between the two aspects
of each element and of the whole–the form and content. This–the unity
between the sense medium and whatever of thought and feeling is embodied
in it–is the fundamental unity in all expression. It is the unity
between a word and its meaning, a musical tone and its mood, a color
and shape and what they represent. Since, however, it is indispensable
to all expression, it is not peculiar to art. And to a large extent,
even in the creative work of the artist, this unity is given, not made;
the very materials of the artist consisting of elementary
expressions–words, tones, colors, space-forms–in which the unity of
form and content has already been achieved, either by an innate
psycho-physical process, as is the case with tones and simple rhythms,
or by association and habit, as is the case with the words of any
natural language, or the object-meanings which we attach to colors
and shapes. The poet does not work with sounds, but with words which
already have their definite meanings; his creation consists of the
larger whole into which he weaves them. Of course, even in the case
of ordinary verbal expression, the thought often comes first before
its clothing in words, when there is a certain process of choice and
fitting; and in painting there is always the possibility of varying
conventional forms; yet even so, in large measure, the elements of the
arts are themselves expressions, in which a unity of form and content
already exists.

In art, however, there are subtler aspects to the relation between
form and content, and these have a unique aesthetic significance. For
there, as we know, the elements of the medium, colors and lines and
sounds, and the patterns of these, their harmonies and structures and
rhythms, are expressive, in a vague way, of feeling; hence, when the
artist employs them as embodiments of his ideas, he has to select them,
not only as carriers of meaning, but as communications of mood. Now,
in order that his selection be appropriate, it is clearly necessary
that the feeling tone of the form be identical with that of the content
which he puts into it. The medium as such must reexpress and so enforce
the values of the content. This is the “harmony,” as distinguished
from the mere unity, of form and content, the existence of which in
art is one of its distinguishing properties. I have already called
attention to this in our second chapter. It involves, as we observed,
that in painting, for example, the feeling tone of the colors and lines
should be identical with that of the objects to be represented; in
poetry, that the emotional quality of meter and rhythm should be attuned
to the incidents and sentiments expressed. Otherwise the effect is
ugly or comical.

When we come to the work of art, this harmony is already achieved. But
for the artist it is something delicately to be worked out. Yet, just
as in ordinary expression form and content often emerge in unison, the
thought itself being a word and the word a thought; so in artistic
creation, the mother mood out of which the creative act springs, finds
immediate and forthright embodiment in a congenial form. Such a
spontaneous and perfect balance of matter and form is, however, seldom
achieved without long and painful experimentation and practice, both
by the artist himself in his own private work, and by his predecessors,
whose results he appropriates. Large traditional and oftentimes rigid
forms, such as the common metrical and musical schemes and architectural
orders, into which the personal matter of expression may aptly fall,
are thus elaborated in every art. As against every looser and novel
form, they have the advantages first, of being more readily and steadily
held in the memory, where they may gather new and poignant associations;
second, of coming to us already freighted with similar associations
out of the past; and last, of compelling the artist, in order that he
may fit his inspiration into them, to purify it of all irrelevant
substance. Impatient artists rebel against forms, but wise ones either
accommodate their genius to them, until they become in the end a second
and equally spontaneous nature, or else create new forms, as definite
as the old.